Admittedly, this is something of a morbid topic, but when the end comes and this fragile orb finally cracks, it may be too late to panic buy, too inappropriate to copulate, and just too ironic to pray -- so what else is there to do other than settle down and read a quality novel.

Industrial chemist, freelance journalist, book reviewer, soon-to-be author, and The Book Show fan, Ali Karim has already enlightened us with his decision. Selecting the yet-to-be-released Child 44, the debut novel by Tom Rob Smith.

Follow the link to discover why I chose the yet to be released Child 44 to read, if the four horseman of apocalypse came to town.

It’s an exceedingly rare occurrence for me to re-read a book/novel. So, with the end of the world imminent, I’d grab the one book I can admit to reading twice and dipping into on another two occasions. For me, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining novel, first published in 1995 and that novel is Black Out by John Lawton.

The setting is London during WWII and the star of the show is one Freddie Troy, the younger son in a wealthy Russian immigrant family. However, Freddie does not want to enter the family’s newspaper business. He becomes a copper. The novel opens with a group of boys finding a hand in the rubble of the Blitz-torn East End. Where it might be all too easy to assume that this is a victim of the bombing, Freddie’s sharp eye and intellect lead him to suggest otherwise. Forensic pathologist Kolankiewicz, Freddie’s partner in investigations and sometimes off the record personal doctor, backs him up. And so begins an investigation that is satisfyingly complex, going to places you’d never have imagined

Although a part of me thinks I ought to read a book I’d never read -- one of the many I’ve been ‘meaning to’ read for years but never got round to (such as Anna Karenina or Crime and Punishment), I would probably go for this one, Reunion by Fred Uhlman, which I’ve read several times already. Barely the length of a novella, it’s the book that has probably affected me more profoundly than any other.

The artsWOM blog sponsored by Sky is an interesting addition to the blogosphere. If you live out of Sky’s satellite reach, the Web site has archived material such as features on writers as diverse as Mark Billingham, William Boyd, John Banville (aka Benjamin Black), Melvin Burgess and many others.